


fear not, we are of the nature of the lion

by havethecouragetoexist



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types
Genre: Gen, Padmé Deserved Better, george lucas can suck my dick
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-09-03
Updated: 2017-09-03
Packaged: 2018-12-23 06:18:28
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,858
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11983914
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/havethecouragetoexist/pseuds/havethecouragetoexist
Summary: The Empire knows the power of propaganda, but so does the Rebellion. Padme Amidala is gone: in her place is a martyr, a legend, a ghost.





	fear not, we are of the nature of the lion

**Author's Note:**

> inspired by this post: http://ifitgivesyoujoy.tumblr.com/post/138191445472/i-just-realized-something-think-about-padme

*

The children of the Empire learn:

_Padme Amidala was elected Queen of Naboo at the age of fourteen. Serving for a full two terms, she was beautiful and well-loved by her people. After stepping down as Queen, Amidala served as Naboo’s representative in the Galactic Senate, and was a close friend and supporter of the Emperor during his time in the old Senate. The death of the young and popular Senator at the hands of rebel terrorists was a blow to many, especially the Emperor himself, who designated her death date as Amidala Day, a day for remembrance and celebration of the glory of the Empire._

The children of the Rebellion learn:

_Padme Amidala was elected Queen of Naboo at the age of fourteen, and served as Senator for Naboo after until the end of her life. Brilliant and passionate, Amidala was a leading voice for peace and democracy during the last days of the Galactic Republic. Padme Amidala died under mysterious circumstances, and was likely assassinated, during Palpatine’s rise to power. She was known to be pregnant at the time, and despite having allegedly died in childbirth, there was never any explanation given for the disappearance of Amidala’s child._

*

The rebellion is built, from the ground up, on the blood and bones of martyrs and legends, and amidst it all the name on everyone’s lips is Padme Amidala.

_Senator Amidala sacrificed herself for us_ , the people of Naboo whisper, under the banners of the Empire, vast swathes of cloth snapping in the wind, shadows dancing over the streets and building facades. They watch the Emperor’s lapdogs swan into the office vacated by the woman who once stood tall in the face of the entire Trade Federation, and spit behind their smiles.

_We’re finishing what she started,_ the Rebellion tells themselves. Bail Organa and Mon Mothma; two people standing in an office where once there were three. Fighter pilots feel it in the thrum of their engines, technicians tell it to each other in laughter and anecdotes over meals in the mess hall, defectors from the Empire hear it in the echo of their footsteps on base; liberty and democracy are the lifeblood of the Rebel Alliance, and above it all the legend of Padme Amidala shines.

_She loved democracy more than her own life, and she died for it._

*

Every year, in the height of summer, the Empire celebrates Amidala Day, and nowhere are the celebrations more extravagant than in Coruscant, the beating heart capital of the Empire.

_Padme Amidala was one of my closest friends, and one of my closest allies,_ the Emperor says, a white-clad ruler standing above rows and rows of white-clad stormtroopers, the sun’s rays skidding off their armour.

_Every year, on this day, we remember this woman who was a friend to the Empire_ , he says, on a balcony of marble above squinting crowds, their necks craned upwards in the mid-afternoon heat.

_We remember this woman who was one of our greatest supporters, and mourn her death,_ he says, distant and regal with his ever-present shadow hovering behind him, a silent presence of mechanical breathing and dark robes, a black spot on an otherwise blindingly white façade.

_Let us never forget the death she suffered at the hands of the rebels,_ he says.

_Let us never forget what we have lost,_ he says. The air around the pair ripples, a black gloved hand twitches, the Force flares in an Emperor’s warning, and then the moment is over before it passes.

_In honouring her memory, we honour the glory of the Empire._

*

The Empire celebrates Amidala Day with fanfare and revelry. Plays and drunken fetes and raucous dances, teenage girls in their most elaborate outfits, all under the watchful eye of Padme Amidala herself.

In a Queen’s regalia, makeup heavy, hair twisted up and piled on her head; in Senator’s robes, smiling and resplendent; in satin, in velvet, in sapphires, in diamonds; portraits of Padme Amidala, clad in all her finery, immortalised in paint and silk, hang from every building spiraling into the sky, cutting out their own piece of the horizon.

Portraits of the Empire’s greatest martyr suspended in the clear blue sky, and before long other portraits make their way onto the streets.

Old holos, flickering and patchy, left behind in dark street corners, of a fourteen-year-old Queen who sits, parasteel rigid, on her throne of glass and gunboat diplomacy; smuggled videos of a Senator who watches, stony-faced and distant, as the Senate around her cheers the rise of a Chancellor.

And, above all, the same image, over and over again, painted on the walls, scrawled out on posters in hidden alleyways, left in the dark of the night on the main roads of Coruscant. Brown eyes, dark and blazing, over twin red dots and white lips, split in two by the bright scarlet of the scar of remembrance.

The people whisper it in the dark and quiet, the Senators look uneasily over at each other, and those brown eyes say, _Let us never forget what we have lost._

_Let us never forget Padme Amidala._

*

The Empire knows the power of propaganda, but so does the Rebellion.

For every poster with her standing tall, proud and regal, beside the smiling face of the Emperor, there is a pamphlet penned by a family member, or friend, or just someone who saw her smile from amidst an enraptured crowd on Naboo, exhortations to support the Rebellion in the name of Padme’s sacrifice.

For every miniature of her printed off the Empire’s presses, there is a talisman, a slender queen’s silhouette carved by hand, hung around a fighter pilot’s neck to bring good luck.

For every ballad exalting her loyalty to the Emperor, there is an anthem, all soaring symphonies and intricate harmonies, about the liberty that Padme Amidala was murdered for.

*

Interlude:

He is more machine than man, more weapon than machine, rage and hatred and grief and fear and loss honed and sharpened into the crackling death of a lightsaber.

He is more weapon than man, but every year in the height of summer he forgets.

_She_ watches him, her brown eyes follow him from every building, every girl he sees in the streets is her, every laugh carried to him on the wind is the sound of her bell-and-chime mirth.

He hates it.

She watches him from every portrait, and her stare is always immeasurably sad, always one of reproach, and every time this year the Force roils uneasily in the pit of his stomach, feels like an ill-fitting tunic scratching at his shoulders.

_Why couldn’t you save me?_ The portraits seem to say.

(When the motifs of brown eyes above crimson cheek dots and paint-split lips start appearing in every alleyway and street corner, he hates it even more.

_This is not what I wanted,_ the rebel graffiti says, and he runs from the ways that it tugs at him, the way that the images call to some part of him, deep down. He tears apart walls and posters and families, the Dark crackling hard and sharp in his hands as he _runs_ from the face of the woman he once held in his arms, her features familiar and ever-present even as he conducts raid after raid for the Emperor.)

*

There are stories, of course that spread across the Rebellion, that weave themselves with threads of both fact and fiction.

One:

Padme Amidala’s spirit lives on in corners of the palace of Theed; her ghost, resplendent and magnificent as she was in life, can be seen on some nights on the throne of Naboo. Her spirit haunts the men instated now by the Emperor, leaves them with nightmares that wake them screaming and mysterious scratches and bruises that no amount of makeup covers.

(Those in the palace leave her offerings, of a sort. Older kitchen staff remember the fourteen-year-old Padme’s favourite pastries, groundskeepers leave steaming mugs of tea next to her favourite jasmine trees, seamstresses new to the palace whisper to her in the light of Naboo’s moon to ask for her to smooth their path.)

Two:

Padme Amidala runs a watering hole on Nar Shadda, face scarred from the Emperor’s assassination attempt and with a whir-click metal creation in place of a leg, but otherwise alive and well. She provides much-needed shelter and food to weary travelers, and information to those in need and loyal to the Republic and the Alliance. Her bar, they say, is the main stop on a slave escape route, and the stopover for many a rebel between missions for the Alliance.

(The Emperor sends his men to the alleged location of this bar, and when Darth Vader is commanded to go with them he never lays a foot on the planet, and instead stays in the Empire-issued ship the entire mission.)

Three:

Padme Amidala lives, on a planet far beyond the Outer Rim, mourning the fall of her beloved Republic, training herself in lost arts that not even the Jedi and the Sith know about, waiting for the right time to make her triumphant return and cut down the once-friend who betrayed her and murdered the Republic in cold blood.

(Rebels and Imperials alike take it upon themselves to search for her, small crafts flying out far beyond the boundaries of charted space and only sometimes managing to limp back with nothing more than a ship on its last legs and the remnants of stardust.)

*

Side note:

The galaxy never forgets Padme Amidala. She becomes a legend, a martyr, a saint, an icon on all sides. She is a warrior, a queen, a victim.

(Padme Amidala was all of those people and more; woman with the strength of water flowing through her veins, unyielding and destructive and healing all at once, but only those closest to her ever really know that.)

The galaxy never forgets Padme Amidala – it immortalises her in sand and silk, in blood and stone, in prayer and song – but funnily enough, it forgets her child easily.

(She was pregnant at the time of her death, was murdered in cold blood by the Empire or the Rebel terrorists, depending on who you ask, and her child was never heard of again, but no one ever talks about the child.)

When a boy of sunshine and laughter grows up on Tatooine, kindness and compassion radiant in his smile in the same way that they danced in the fingers of a foreign woman who visited, who stayed for a few days years ago, the boy’s adoptive parents remember. They remember, and watch their nephew befriend the desert animals, and they raise him in love and worry.

When a girl of fire and storms grows up on Alderaan, determination and anger born into the curve of her spine in the same way that they rested in the set of a Senator’s and a friend’s shoulders years ago, the girl’s parents remember. They remember, and indulge her when she asks to learn to be like her mother and father before her, and they raise her with love and lessons in making weapons out of words.

**Author's Note:**

> thanks for stopping by! if you liked it/didn't like it leave me a comment, tell me what you think! as always i'm available on tumblr at heyspoiler to scream about a great number of things so come hmu :)


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